Review: Klee Wyck

Klee Wyck by Emily Carr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



That was really lovely. She describes the scenes well and I pictured what I remember about the forests and sea around Vancouver Island as I read.



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Review: The Little Blue-Eyed Vampire from Hell

The Little Blue-Eyed Vampire from Hell by Richard Ellis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Though occasionally over my head, this was really interesting. I'm ready for Kait's questions about Cephalopods now.



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Review: Holidays on Ice

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This weekend I didn't venture out until Sunday afternoon book club/brunch. We read David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice - I wasn't a huge fan of the book, but the discussion was still interesting.

2014 - reread SantaLand Diaries. Alone it's a four star read for sure. Almost laughed hard enough to knock Kait off the nipple while she was nursing.



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Review: A Vampire's Christmas Carol

A Vampire's Christmas Carol by Cynthia Eden

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A Christmas Carol with vampires, demons, shapeshifter a and a guardian angel. And sex. If you're into vamp porn, this one is pretty good.



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Review: Rho Magna, the Laotian War Dragon

Rho Magna, the Laotian War Dragon by Mark Berent

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Technically, there were some issues. Typos, missing commas, some awkward verb tense usage. In a short story, not too hard to ignore. There was a good emotional gut punch to the writing, and though I haven't been to alias, I learned a lot about the Ho Chi Min Trail while I was in Vietnam. There's an excerpt for the novel, Phantom Shadows, which was a bit too much plane talk for me, but the story wasn't bad at all. I'm fairly sure I got this as an Amazon freebie - I'd check out the author further, if another freebie came up.



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Review: All the Time in the World

All the Time in the World by Shiloh Walker

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is basically just a sex scene with a few hints of the world of the Grimms. I'm curious enough to read the first of the series, but in no rush.



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Review: Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The first section on life in the concentration camps was interesting and moving. The second section on logotherapy was a bit less interesting to me, though I generally found it well explained.



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Review: Santa Is Coming to Colorado

Santa Is Coming to Colorado by Steve Smallman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was Kait's first Christmas Eve read. I want to start the tradition of the Christmas Eve box: new pjs for everyone, a book for her, a movie and popcorn, hot chocolate, candy etc to go with it. I don't think we will be in Colorado for too long, so I liked the idea of a local book like this that we can revisit when we tell her stories about when she was a baby here. And as a bonus, the story was cute too.



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Review: The Thing Beneath the Bed

The Thing Beneath the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



My brother got me this for Christmas and it is wonderful. For the first third, I was thinking that I didn't see why it wasn't for children. Then it took a turn. But everything was ok again for a moment until it took another turn. I disk not see that coming.



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Review: The Egg

The Egg by Andy Weir

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



That was quick and fun- a very short story with a very big idea.



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Review: The Raven

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I've read this before, but it happened to be on my kindle and I thought I'd reread before deleting it. I love the flow and rhythm. It's a fun little poem.



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Review: Dates From Hell

Dates From Hell by Kim Harrison

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I read the Claire Switch Project and it was rather meh. I'll return to read the others at some point but I'm in no rush.

Undead In The Garden of Good and Evil was much better, but since that was my first taste of Kim Harrison; it was also confusing. Living vampires vs. undead vampires? I've no idea what's going on in this world, but I'm curious to read further now. Bit too much sex, though. Reminded me of the Anita Blake I read.

Chaotic by Kelley Armstrong was my favourite. The world sounds fun and both of the characters are appealing. Plus, the author's Canadian and I always mean to read more Canadian authors.

Dead Man Dating was the only story by an author I hadn't heard of and was the second best of the bunch.



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Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Neither novels nor their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species "

And so starts off a very book-driven story, which I hadn't been expecting. Characters bond over books, talking about how exciting it is to live in an infinite fiction. I was also surprised by how funny the book is. The line "Your driving is unpleasant, but it isn't technically unsafe" made me actually laugh out loud.

I loved the father's take on the meaning of life:

"That's what I believe. I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased towards consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed."

If the bookishness and humour of the book surprised me, it wasn't as much as the fact that it made me cry. I could blame the breastfeeding hormones, but there were tears. And not about anything I might have expected going in. There was a line about her mother saying when she almost died that she wouldn't be a mother anymore and it just hit right at my heart. And then that turned out to be a key issue to be resolved at the end. Hard thing to read while nursing and cuddling an infant.

I read this in the course of a day for an in-person book club. The plot struck me as rather silly at times (the whole trip to Amsterdam) or obvious (Gus's health) but the humour won me over.



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Review: Don't Eat Cat

Don't Eat Cat by Jess Walter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Hilarious short story that packs a few good dystopia punches too.



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Review: The Works of Edgar Allen Poe Volume 2

The Works of Edgar Allen Poe Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I think I've now read Poe's most famous stories, which is interesting since I've got vol.s 1, 3 and 4 to go. A few of the stories were really similar to each other - for example The Tell-Tale Heart and the one earlier in the collection where the character does almost exactly the same thing at the end. I do like how he has this long lead up to what's going on because in the good stories, this adds to the suspense. In the ones I liked less though it was really tedious.

Let's blame the baby for the fact that this was meant to be read in October, as my plan was to read a volume each year. Didn't expect it to take until December! Oops.



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